WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor announced today a consent judgment requiring the owners of two Johnny Rockets restaurants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to pay $571,460 in back wages and liquidated damages to 55 servers denied the minimum wage and overtime.

ATLANTA – Florida’s emergency workers, employers and the public at-large face potentially serious hazards as they begin to recover from Hurricane Matthew, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is urging vigilance during the cleanup.

Date of Action: Oct. 3, 2016

Type of Action: Settlement reached to resolve allegations of retaliation

Name of Defendants: Maria R. Mendez Zuniga, dba as La Iguana Restaurant #4 and Jesus Zuniga in Portland, Texas

Opportunity Title: Global Project to Promote Private Sector Investment in Workplace-Based Training Programs for Vulnerable Youth

Amount approved/awarded: $1,400,000

Funding awarded to: Global Apprenticeships Network

Purpose: To strengthen country-level business networks in support of apprenticeships for vulnerable youth

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A Syracuse roofing contractor with a history of safety violations has again exposed its employees to potentially fatal fall hazards at one of its worksites, this time in Camillus.

Employer name: Allstate Can Corp.
One Wood Hollow Road
Parsippany, New Jersey

Inspection site: One Wood Hollow Road
Parsippany, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 16, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the company citations for one willful violation and four serious violations.

In the week ending October 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 249,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 254,000. The 4-week moving average was 253,500, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week's unrevised average of 256,000. This is the lowest level for this average since December 8, 1973 when it was 252,250.

Date of Action: Sept. 9, 2016

Type of Action: Lawsuit

Name of Defendant: Wok on Wheels USA LLC, Shin Oak Investments LLC and Cedars Enterprises LLC —doing business as Wok on Wheels; owners Said Al-Haj and Rhonda Al-Haj.

Employer name: Patterson Services Inc.

Investigation site: 5800 Riverview Road
Mableton, Georgia 30126

WASHINGTON – International development company and federal contractor Chemonics International Inc. has agreed to pay $482,243 in back wages, interest and benefits to 124 African-American applicants. The agreement settles U.S. Department of Labor findings that the company discriminated on the basis of race in hiring for its professional entry-level program.

CHICAGO ‒ Thirty-six Illinois workers have died on the job since Jan. 1, 2016. An average of one life lost each week in the Prairie State.

The tragedies that befell two men are sobering reminders of preventable workplace dangers:

Event: The U.S. Department of Labor will host an outreach event for current and former nuclear weapons workers in Huntington, West Virginia, on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016. Federal representatives will present information at the meeting, about the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act and the program’s available medical benefits.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Feeling the symptoms of heat-related illness, a 24-year-old U.S. Postal Service mail carrier asked her supervisor to be relieved after walking about half-way through her 11-mile delivery route on a hot June day in Des Moines when temperatures exceeded 93 degrees. Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration later learned the woman’s supervisor told her initially to continue walking her route despite feeling ill.

Employer name: Aluminum Shapes LLC
900 River Road
Pennsauken, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 23, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to Aluminum Shapes for one serious and two repeat violations.

Employer name: Key Resources Inc.

Investigation site: 3703 West Market St.
Greensboro, North Carolina 27403

Investigation findings: Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division’s Raleigh District Office found the employer violated overtime and minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Employer: R&R Construction Services Corp.

Sites: Maile Sky Court Hotel
2058 Kuhio Ave., Honolulu Hawaii

AUSTIN, Texas – In nearly every one of its investigations of restaurants in fiscal year 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division says restaurant owners in the Austin area violated federal labor law by not paying their workers the wages they were legally owed.

STEVENS POINT, Wis. – An Arpin contractor faces penalties of $93,532 after federal inspectors found the company risked the lives of at least two of its employees as they installed underground water, sanitary and storm sewer utilities in an unprotected 9-foot deep trench at the Stevens Point Sixth Avenue Reconstruction Project.

DALLAS – The U.S. Department of Labor has settled allegations of systemic hiring discrimination by one of the world’s largest food processing companies at six of its locations in Texas, Arkansas and New Mexico after an investigation by the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

BOISE, Idaho – A Boise excavation contractor could have prevented the deaths of two workers and serious injuries suffered by a third after a trench collapse if the company had not allowed federal safety standards to be ignored at a Northwest Boise work site in May.